Murdering your spouse is bad, so it’s slightly bizarre how Drowning by Numbers has an unbothered, even amused, attitude towards its murders. Moments seem randomly placed, like the first scene of a girl jumping rope while listing the stars by name, and the film can be hard to follow, even if the production design and cinematography keep you drawn in. But as the film progresses, and Madgett’s son Smut enumerates the fictional games as if he was a historian of sorts, writer-director Peter Greenaway meticulously crafts a quirky, twisty crime comedy, where, like children’s games and the men in their lives, the murdering wives do what they do because they can get away with it. Drowning by Numbers cleverly plays with the way we treat folklore, structure, and rules, even down to the very medium Greenaway works with.
Cissie Colpitts drowns her cheating husband and, in the ensuing cover-up, enlists the help of lonely coroner Henry Madgett, an old friend with a longstanding weakness for her charms. But when Cissie's daughter and granddaughter—both also named Cissie Colpitts—decide to resort to the same methods for solving conflicts with their own frustrating husbands, the women and their repeated appeals for help begin to wear on Madgett's conscience.
Three generations of women, all named Cissie Colpitts, all share the same marriage woes, and they all enlist the help of the lonely coroner Henry Madgett to help solve this issue, much to Madgett’s chagrin.
Halfway through, viewers would probably be noticing that numbers, in sequence, appear either through the dialogue and in the background through address posts, drawings, and items that would naturally be within the maximalist, almost cluttered scenes. It’s a fun game to spot them, but it also makes the viewer pay close attention and appreciate the excellent production design (or, encourage the viewer to watch again, just to see if they can find the numbers the next time).
I spy with my little eye…
Cannes
1 win
